SEO is not one activity. It is several distinct kinds of work that happen to share a goal, and knowing which is which makes it far easier to tell what you are paying for and what is missing.
This page covers the work itself. For how that work gets bundled and sold, see what is included in an SEO package.
Technical work
Making the site crawlable, indexable and fast enough. Fixing what prevents pages from being found and stored at all.
- Crawl and indexation diagnosis. See crawlability and indexation.
- Site structure and internal linking.
- Page speed and Core Web Vitals. See Core Web Vitals.
- Redirects, canonical tags and duplicate handling.
- Structured data.
This is foundational. Content published to a site with unresolved technical problems compounds slowly or not at all.
Keyword and market research
Establishing what your buyers actually search, which terms carry commercial intent, how contested each is, and which pages should own which. Done properly this determines everything downstream. See keyword mapping.
On-page work
Making individual pages match the searches they target — titles, headings, body content, internal links and the structure of the page itself. Usually the highest-return work on a site that already has traffic. See on-page SEO.
Content
Producing the pages that do not yet exist and improving those that underperform. Two distinct jobs: filling genuine gaps, and fixing pages that rank but do not convert or that have decayed. See content strategy.
Authority and links
Earning references from other sites. Slow, hard to guarantee, and the area where poor practice does real damage. Be sceptical of any service promising volume.
Local
Where you serve a geographic market — profile management, reviews, citations and location pages. A distinct discipline rather than a subset of the rest. See local SEO.
Measurement and reporting
Tracking what changed and what it produced commercially. Reporting is not the work; it is how you find out whether the work is working. A service that is mostly reporting is not delivering much.
What is often assumed and not included
- Implementation. Many engagements deliver recommendations and stop. Confirm who applies them.
- Content writing, as opposed to content planning.
- Development time for technical fixes.
- Paid search, which is a different channel entirely.
- Conversion work — turning visits into enquiries.
These are the gaps that cause engagements to stall. See implementation support.
Frequently asked questions
Which matters most?
Whichever is most broken. On a site with indexation problems, technical. On a technically sound site with thin pages, content. Anyone answering without looking is describing their standard offer.
Do I need all of it?
No. Concentrating on what is actually limiting you beats spreading effort thinly across everything.
How do I know what is being done?
Ask for the changes made to the site, not the activity summary. See how to know if SEO is working.
Is link building necessary?
In competitive markets, eventually. Most sites have more to gain from technical and content work first.
Consulting CTA
To find out which of these your site actually needs, book an SEO consultation.